tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2812279708107783142018-05-28T20:47:33.252-07:00The iPad ChroniclesRobert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125TheIpadChronicleshttps://feedburner.google.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-69892321118608758012015-08-16T21:14:00.001-07:002015-08-16T21:17:18.073-07:00Apple’s Share Repurchase Program - August 2015<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">At the end of the recent June quarter, Apple’s management announced roughly $90 billion of the current $140 billion share repurchase program had been completed. The $90 billion includes a $6 billion May 2015 ASR (Accelerated Share Repurchase program) to be completed in November 2015.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Apple’s fully diluted share count from the company’s Condensed Consolidated Statement Of Operations as June 27, 2015 reflected 5.733 billion shares in the fully diluted share count. This is a 1.06% decline in the fully diluted share count from the March quarter and a year-over-year decline in the count of 4.06%.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Since the share count high in FQ4 2012, the fully diluted share count has been reduced as of the end of the recent June quarter by 13.02%. In FY2014 Apple deployed $24 billion for share repurchases at an average share cost of about $84. In the first nine months of the current fiscal year Apple deployed $16 billion for repurchases at an average price of $120 per share.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The graph below illustrates the dramatic reduction in the fully diluted share count since the September quarter of 2012 (FQ4 2012).&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MYY-CMcr7ME/VdFehjInqPI/AAAAAAAABO8/a1MXjQkIehA/s1600/Fully%2BDiluted%2BShare%2BCount.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MYY-CMcr7ME/VdFehjInqPI/AAAAAAAABO8/a1MXjQkIehA/s400/Fully%2BDiluted%2BShare%2BCount.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Apple used a combination of cash-on-hand and debt to complete the $90 billion in repurchases to-date. The June quarter Form 10-Q (FQ3 2015) indicates $50 billion in debt had been acquired for the repurchase of shares as of the end of the period on June 27, 2015. As of the same date Apple had cash and marketable securities on the balance sheet totaling about $203 billion. Of the roughly $203 billion in cash and marketable securities, $181 billion was held by foreign subsidiaries outside the United States. Apple’s decision to acquire debt for the repurchase of shares forestalls the need to repatriate foreign-sourced funds and remit declared but yet unpaid US taxes on those dollars.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">As of the end of the June quarter, the fully diluted share count is now below FY2005 split-adjusted levels. In other words, the company has already eliminated 10 years of “share creep” or increases in the fully diluted share count from a variety of sources including stock-based compensation and any shares used to facilitate the company’s many acquisitions.&nbsp;</div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">With $50 billion remaining in the current repurchase program extending through the March quarter of FY2017, Apple will continue to materially reduce the fully diluted share count over the next seven fiscal quarters.&nbsp;</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/ryNu7R2Zf1s" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2015/08/apples-share-repurchase-program-august.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-54791187725613625322015-08-16T15:36:00.000-07:002015-08-16T15:36:08.505-07:00Apple's R&D Expenses<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">In the recent June quarter, Apple’s R&amp;D expenses surpassed $2 billion in a quarterly period for the first time. R&amp;D expenses rose nearly 27% year-over-year in the June quarter and were 72% higher than in the corresponding quarter two years ago.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">In the first nine months of the current fiscal year, Apple has spent $5.847 billion on research and development, nearly reaching the $6.041 billion spent in all of FY2014. The company is on track to spend in the range of $8 billion on R&amp;D expenses in FY2015, exceeding the prior year’s investment by 30% or more. R&amp;D expenses reached over 4% of reported revenue in the second half of FY2014 and may again reach that level of revenue consumption in the second half of FY2015. Over the first nine months of the current fiscal year, revenue has risen by 30% while R&amp;D expenses have risen by 34% during the period.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hEWgEBsKep4/VdEPxWdiHhI/AAAAAAAABOs/aGtuHsWJvKM/s1600/Apple%2527s%2BR%2526D%2BExpenses.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="107" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hEWgEBsKep4/VdEPxWdiHhI/AAAAAAAABOs/aGtuHsWJvKM/s400/Apple%2527s%2BR%2526D%2BExpenses.tiff" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Rising R&amp;D expenses suggest increasing investment by management in the development of new products and services as well as ongoing development of the company’s existing product and service lines.</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/MN6mnUdfnBo" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2015/08/apples-r-expenses.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-64445881696453552152015-06-20T21:11:00.000-07:002015-06-20T21:14:32.600-07:00Apple Turns Back The Clock On The Fully Diluted Share Count<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">During management’s March quarter conference call with analysts, Apple CFO Luca Maestri announced the company had completed roughly $80 billion of the planned $140 billion in share repurchases. The average price at which shares had been repurchased was stated as $85.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">To put the $80 billion in repurchases in perspective, I have charted the fully diluted share count for fiscal years 2005 through 2014 and added the fully diluted share count as reported in the March quarter 10-Q filing by the company.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The graph below illustrates the fact the fully diluted share count as of the end of the recent March quarter is below the fully diluted share count at the beginning of this nearly ten-year period on a split-adjusted basis. With $60 billion in additional repurchases to be made through the March quarter of FY2017, Apple has turned back the clock on what might be called “share creep” from stock-based compensation and other distributions of new shares.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZE0Bg2RKuP4/VYY4qZaS90I/AAAAAAAABOU/k3GiQSlufU0/s1600/Apple%2527s%2BFully%2BDiluted%2BShare%2BCount.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZE0Bg2RKuP4/VYY4qZaS90I/AAAAAAAABOU/k3GiQSlufU0/s400/Apple%2527s%2BFully%2BDiluted%2BShare%2BCount.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">By the end of the recent March quarter the company had reduced the fully diluted share count by 11.83% since FY2012 or over a period of ten fiscal quarters. The fully diluted share count will continue to diminish as management exhausts the remaining $60 billion in repurchases over the next eight fiscal quarters.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The ongoing reduction in the fully diluted share count will continue to amplify the impact of the company’s rising net income on reported earnings per share.&nbsp;</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/4IDAQuagwu0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2015/06/apple-turns-back-clock-on-fully-diluted.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-78341628812394381942015-02-16T20:36:00.001-08:002015-02-16T20:36:48.231-08:00Apple’s Deferred Revenue Balances<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Apple defers up to $25 in revenue per iOS device sold and $40 in revenue per Macintosh sold to future periods. The amounts deferred represent an estimate of the value of the free software upgrades Apple provides to device owners over the anticipated useful life of the product. This value is included in the purchase price of each device and recognized as revenue over subsequent periods following the period of original purchase.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">In the December quarter (FQ1 2015) Apple added on a sequential basis $945 million to the company’s deferred revenue total. The year-over-year rise was $1.039 billion. At the end of the quarter Apple had $12.467 billion in current and non-current deferred revenue on the balance sheet.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The graph below illustrates Apple’s deferred revenue balances on a quarterly basis and the year-over-year change in the deferred revenue total in each quarter.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-woQON3_ix7k/VOLDqtFLkMI/AAAAAAAABKc/SUxX0JObA6A/s1600/Apple's%2BDeferred%2BRevenue%2BBalances.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-woQON3_ix7k/VOLDqtFLkMI/AAAAAAAABKc/SUxX0JObA6A/s1600/Apple's%2BDeferred%2BRevenue%2BBalances.jpg" height="117" width="400" /></a></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">While the pace of growth in the company’s deferred revenue total moderated as revenue growth moderated beginning in the latter half of FY2013 with very little movement in the total throughout FY2014, much faster rates of revenue growth this fiscal year and through at least the first half of FY2016 may deliver rising deferred revenue balances each quarter for the next several quarters. In other words, more revenue may be deferred in each quarter this fiscal year than is recognized from revenue deferred in prior periods.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Robert Paul Leitao</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/hHuPTs8zdxA" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2015/02/apples-deferred-revenue-balances.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-58062900446314349282015-02-14T23:50:00.002-08:002015-02-14T23:50:27.329-08:00Apple's Fully Diluted Share Count<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Apple is engaged in the largest capital return program in enterprise history. The capital return program is comprised of the company’s regular quarterly dividend and the current $90 billion share repurchase program set to be completed by the end of this calendar year.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The graphs below illustrates the significant drop in the reported fully diluted share count since the $90 billion share repurchase program began.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P419CRcVbbA/VOBHZme1zuI/AAAAAAAABKA/fHq4tA9zTZc/s1600/Apple's%2BFully%2BDiluted%2BShare%2BCount.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P419CRcVbbA/VOBHZme1zuI/AAAAAAAABKA/fHq4tA9zTZc/s1600/Apple's%2BFully%2BDiluted%2BShare%2BCount.jpg" height="98" width="400" /></a></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">During the December quarter conference call with analysts held in January, Apple CFO Luka Maestri stated the company had completed $73 billion of the planned share repurchases under the $90 billion share repurchase program. The Form 10-Q for the quarter puts the amount already invested in share repurchases at $72.90 billion comprised of both accelerated share repurchase programs and open market share repurchases</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">For the December quarter Apple reported the fully diluted share count at 5.882 billion shares. This contrasts with the split-adjusted 6.337 billion shares in the reported fully diluted share count in the September quarter (FQ4) of 2012.&nbsp;<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">To further illustrate the dramatic drop in fully diluted share count, I have charted the percentage changes in the fully diluted share count on a sequential and year-over-year basis. From the peak in FQ4 2012 the fully diluted share count has fallen 12.84% through the December quarter. In the recent December quarter, there were 6.788% fewer shares in the fully diluted share count than in the prior-year period. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tuBm7qGPCI4/VOBI2GjLfhI/AAAAAAAABKM/_KzCULCGmVQ/s1600/Fully%2BDiluted%2BShare%2BCount%2BChanges.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tuBm7qGPCI4/VOBI2GjLfhI/AAAAAAAABKM/_KzCULCGmVQ/s1600/Fully%2BDiluted%2BShare%2BCount%2BChanges.jpg" height="100" width="400" /></a></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Because Apple averages the number of fully diluted shares in each quarterly reporting period, any and all repurchases in a quarter this calendar year will have a residual and beneficial impact on earnings per share in the corresponding quarter in 2016. Although there is much speculation Apple will announce an expansion of the current repurchase program in April, the repurchases are currently scheduled to be completed by the end of CY2015.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Since the September quarter of FY2012, on a split-adjusted basis, Apple has achieved a net reduction of approximately 755.50 million shares. While much has been written about Apple’s decision to borrow funds to complete the share repurchase program rather than repatriate foreign-sourced earnings, using the current $1.88 per share dividend as a guide, the company is currently saving in annual cash disbursements from the elimination of dividends on the repurchased shares about $1.420 billion.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Notwithstanding speculation Apple will announce an expansion of the current $90 billion share repurchase program along with the announcement of a dividend increase during the March quarter conference call in April, the existing share repurchase program with $17 billion remaining to be invested in share repurchases has already substantially reduced the company’s fully diluted share count.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Robert Paul Leitao</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/3TLQ4jbmzRE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2015/02/apples-fully-diluted-share-count.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-59018649753315575412015-02-12T18:33:00.001-08:002015-02-12T18:33:03.313-08:00Apple And The Irrelevance of Trailing 12-Month Earnings<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">In Apple’s December quarter (FQ1 2015), revenue rose 29.53% on a year-over-year basis to $74.599 billion. On a sequential basis, the revenue growth rate was 77.10%. This was the fastest rate of year-over-year revenue growth since the March quarter of FY2012. The sequential revenue growth rate surpassed the 63.89% rate of growth in the December quarter of FY2012 (FQ1 2012).&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The graph below illustrates the dramatic rise in revenue in the three-month period ended December 27, 2014 (FQ1 2015).&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vhWH_RMosEM/VN1hpC-A-eI/AAAAAAAABJo/ewZt6syb2oM/s1600/Apple%2BRevenue%2BBy%2BQuarter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vhWH_RMosEM/VN1hpC-A-eI/AAAAAAAABJo/ewZt6syb2oM/s1600/Apple%2BRevenue%2BBy%2BQuarter.jpg" height="92" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">In the same quarter earnings per share rose 47.83% year-over-year and on a sequential basis earnings per share rose 115.49%. This was the fastest rate of year-over-year earnings per share growth since the March quarter of FY2012 and the sequential earnings per share growth rate was the fastest rate of growth in the company’s recent history.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The graph below provides a perspective on Apple’s earnings per share growth rate, amplified by the ongoing share repurchase program, relative to the rates of growth over the most recent twenty five fiscal quarters.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OJH_Q9iHCTw/VN1hx2DoqdI/AAAAAAAABJw/Rab1PODMChc/s1600/Apple%2BEPS%2BBy%2BQuarter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OJH_Q9iHCTw/VN1hx2DoqdI/AAAAAAAABJw/Rab1PODMChc/s1600/Apple%2BEPS%2BBy%2BQuarter.jpg" height="96" width="400" /></a></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">For the current fiscal year, I am targeting revenue of $235 billion (inclusive of the successful launch of the Apple Watch in April). At 28.56% revenue growth, FY2015 would deliver the fastest rate of revenue growth since the 44.58% revenue growth rate in FY2012. Assuming no less than 23% of revenue flows to the net income line and Apple reaches my current revenue target, net income would reach $54 billion and an eps outcome well above $9 per share.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Using $9 per share as an example, at the closing price of $126.46 on February 12, 2015, the shares are currently trading at just over 14 times estimated FY2015 earnings per share. This contrasts with the price earnings multiple of 17.12 times trailing 12-month earnings as of this February date.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">In my view, net income and the rate of net income growth are the primary drivers of Apple’s share price appreciation. The company is in only the second quarter of what may be a six-quarter epoch of accelerated rates of revenue and earnings growth. Looking back and using 12-month trailing earnings as a guide at this point in time will only obfuscate the potential for share price appreciation moving forward.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">At this point in time, trailing 12-month earnings is an irrelevant metric. Net income and net income growth over the next several quarters amplified by the ongoing share repurchase program are where Apple watchers should cast their gaze.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Robert Paul Leitao</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/0gVRhMdWK4g" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2015/02/apple-and-irrelevance-of-trailing-12.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-38163058127452829462015-02-11T22:34:00.000-08:002015-02-11T22:34:38.990-08:00Briefly… Why I’m Bullish On Apple<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">What analyst Brian White at Cantor Fitzgerald calls a “super cycle” I call the <a href="http://www.postsateventide.com/2015/01/the-earnings-trend-is-again-apples.html" target="_blank">“Apple iPhone Echo Effect.”</a> The success of the iPhone 6 handsets is far-reaching and will continue through the release of the successor flagship handsets next fiscal year.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">The unified and uniform eco-system Tim Cook lauded in his commentary yesterday at the <a href="http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/15pibuasfvoihbeafv02/event/index.html" target="_blank">Goldman Sachs&nbsp; Technology and Internet Conference</a> is unrivaled and can not be matched. The IBM agreement will act as a “booster rocket” on enterprise sales.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">Due to the market’s consistently conservative valuation of the company, Apple has been able to repurchases just over 1 in 8 fully diluted shares since the peak split-adjusted share count in FQ4 2012. That’s even considering the averaging of the fully diluted share count in the December quarter. The annual cash savings at the current dividend rate from the repurchases is now about $1.425 billion (and rising).</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">Because Apple averages the fully diluted share count each quarter, any quarter in which repurchases occur, the repurchases will have a residual and beneficial impact on the eps growth rate in the following fiscal year’s corresponding quarter. In other words, the share repurchases have a “pair of legs.”</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">As revenue growth rates reach double digits, the rate of growth exceeds the rate of growth in operating expenses which delivers a higher percentage of revenue to the net income line. This will likely be the case at least through the March quarter of FY2016. This will boost net income per revenue dollar with an amplified impact on eps from the share repurchase program.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">While it’s common to view Apple’s growth in percentage terms, even if revenue and earnings growth rates begin to moderate beginning in FQ3 2016, the volume of revenue and earnings growth need to be considered. The cash generation, even at more moderate rates of reported growth, will continue to generate cash at volumes to support a significant and ongoing capital return program.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">Combine the “Apple iPhone echo effect” with the release of the Apple Watch and the surge in revenue and net income in just the first four quarters after the new product line is released is not factored in current analyst estimates.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">There isn’t a competitor on the planet that can successfully design and deliver a wrist-based digital device on the scale of Apple or with full compatibility with hundreds of millions of smartphones.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">Again, the market and consumers the world over are currently expecting a “watch.” The only resemblance the Apple Watch will have to a watch is that it will tell time and it will be attached to the wrist. That’s why I call the Apple Watch the <a href="http://www.theipadchronicles.com/2015/02/the-apple-watch-as-ultimate-skeuomorph.html" target="_blank">“ultimate skeuomorph.”</a></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">More on my bullish stance in a future post.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">Robert Paul Leitao</div><div><br /></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/K-4_qJrFyAo" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2015/02/briefly-why-im-bullish-on-apple.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-66789369729124123662015-02-09T23:08:00.001-08:002015-02-10T21:08:47.995-08:00The Apple Watch As The Ultimate Skeuomorph<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">I posted this view of the Apple Watch in the Braeburn Group community last evening:</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><b>The Apple Watch As The Ultimate Skeuomorph</b></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">In my view, the tech pundits just don’t get the Apple Watch. They keep viewing it as a watch. If the Apple Watch was primarily a timepiece, I can understand the current thinking. The only similarities the Apple Watch has to a watch is that it will function as a watch and is strapped to the wrist. The wrist is among the most anatomically comfortable locations for a wearable and more than a century of social acceptance of a wrist-based device makes the form of a watch a natural for a device.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">I don’t recall the last time a forthcoming device was so misunderstood. There’s no shortage of timepieces in our world from our cars, to our computers to our smartphones to our offices to our clock radios. Consumers don’t need another clock. Although I don’t like the term, from a social/luxury goods standpoint, the Apple Watch is it’s own form of a skeuomorph. In other words, Apple has taken a highly socially acceptable form (the wrist watch) and is using the form to drive fast adoption and easy luxury goods designation of a wearable computing device. The fact that it tells time and is called the “Apple Watch” provides the means to gain social acceptance and take advantage of the luxury goods perception of a finely-crafted timepiece.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">In a way, it’s skeuomorphism on a new level. This is brilliant. Apple announces the new line and presents it in the context of a watch (comfortable, socially accepted and easy to designate as a luxury item) then leaves plenty of time space for that context to seep into the public perception. As the product approaches release and through the release Apple then ramps up talk of its functions and the press then runs reports on the astonishing advanced functionality Apple has put into a “watch.” There is really no reference for a product launch of this kind and with this approach in the era of mass adoption of personal computing devices.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">Now factoring in what will most likely be restricted distribution through Apple’s direct channels for at least the first few months following release with expanded distribution through luxury/upscale retailers in time for the holidays, and that’s millions of new visits to Apple retail stores from buyers to the curious spectator.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">I’m striving to create a model to quantify the impact of the Apple Watch on iPhone, Mac and iPad sales in addition to the sales of Apple Watch units. As we know, Apple Watch is an Apple Pay-enabled device. Among the reasons why I’m a bit shy on estimates beyond FY2015 at the moment is due to the Apple Watch. That’s a variable no one can accurately quantify at the moment. From the time of release, it will make every other high-end smartphone vendor’s product line appear incomplete by comparison and there isn’t a competitor that can bring to market such a wearable in a classic, luxury goods design. Any effort will look like a cheap rip-off.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">In response, EdTech, a long-time member of the Braeburn Group posted his commentary on my viewpoint:</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">"<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I would add on to your train of thought with the following notion.&nbsp; People - and particularly tech savvy people are drawn to the physical aspects of a piece of computing technology. When they look at computer, they see the metal, silicon and glass that go into making the computing device, and because of our love and intimacy with physical things, we gravitate toward using its physical characteristics to evaluate its worth. Hence a generation which grew up looking at feeds and speeds, cycles and power consumption, dimensions and shapes and using those metrics to define the worth and value of the computer.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">However, the hardware only defines the limits of what a computer can do. To be more precise, the hardware prescribes the boundaries around what a computer could possibly do. What truly defines the usefulness of that computer, however, is the software that runs on it. Without well designed software, a computing device is merely an expensive ornament or a heavy paperweight. However, software is not a physical entity, it is much more abstract and ephemeral, so it is much more difficult to quantify and evaluate its merits. Software - at least well written software, is more likely to evoke an emotional response than an analytical one in use. And it is the access to brilliantly designed, intuitive, and easy to use software - from OS 6 all the way up to OS X and onwards to iOS, that has brought the magic and wonder of the Apple ethos for excellence and elegance to the computing experience.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">Before the app store, the iPhone was merely a phone that also had a web browser and a music player in it. Once Steve Jobs relented and opened up the App store, it took on a new life greater and more impactful than ever before imagined, because it was only then, that the iPhone became a universal ultra mobile conduit for software.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">Perhaps there is some strange cosmic irony that Apple is named App-ple, because it is the software stack, the apps, programs, and the OS, that create the usefulness that we find in the iMac, MacBook, iPhone, and iPad. All of those are mere instruments to serve up Apps (software Applications) that are so elegant they draw us in emotionally to the computing experience. Computing hardware is just a box (and in Apple’s case, a pretty box)&nbsp; that makes the software accessible humans.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">The iWatch should be seen in a similar light. It is a conduit for the apps that will provide functionality and that emotional bond that the user will have with the device. Because of this, the more important question, like in all the other cases (iMac, MacBook, iPhone, iPad), isn’t, “how good is the hardware?”, but rather, “how good will the software be that will bring new functionality to that form factor?”, because it will be the software that defines the usefulness of the computing device and henceforth, the Apple Watch.&nbsp; We tend to evaluate things compared to what we have experienced in the past - but this does not consider that the potential for the new device to be used in completely new ways. That is why much of the world underestimated the iPhone and the iPad initially.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">Because of this reliance on software to provide functionality, it is impossible for us to evaluate how good the iWatch will be at launch, just as it was impossible for us to accurately predict how useful the iPhone was going to be at it’s launch, and how useful the iPad would be at its launch. We just don’t have enough experience with the hardware to begin to fathom what are the limits that hardware imposes and what are the depths of usefulness that some enterprising coder is going to be able to coax out from within that boundary. At the end of the day, it is up to the genius of the coder to expand the definition of what is possible given the constraints of the hardware, and it is impossible to know at device launch the limit of creativity that will be brought to bear on this puzzle.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">Each major revolution that Apple has brought to computing was based on a fundamental change in user input (keyboard - Apple II, Mouse - Mac, trackball/trackpad - Powerbook/MacBook, Multitouch - iPhone/iPad) and now we have a wrist worn computing device with continuous biometric input and haptic feedback. It is way too early to know how useful the iWatch can become, but the revolution in user interface is one clue…."</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">-----</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">I don't think the market yet grasps what the Apple Watch represents and how in its own way it will transform personal communications and the way we interact with digital devices.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px;">Robert Paul Leitao</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/Zcz8HJ5djCE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2015/02/the-apple-watch-as-ultimate-skeuomorph.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-89060124267588827192014-03-02T11:25:00.002-08:002014-03-02T11:26:53.650-08:00Apple As An Episodic Enterprise<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As a member of the Braeburn Group of independent Apple analysts, there isn’t a day that goes by I’m not slicing and dicing the latest company news and media speculation about forthcoming products. For our members, Apple analysis is a full-contact, participatory sport. No one has the luxury of just sitting on the sidelines.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">News reports from Apple component suppliers, Wall Street analyst commentary, patent disclosures, web usage stats and just about any other tidbit of information about Apple generates spirited discussions and debate on a daily basis. It’s what we do and please don’t ask why we do it.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For our members, even a brief visit to an Apple retail store is more than a shopping trip. It becomes an adventure in acquiring anecdotal data. It’s observing which products are captivating the attention of shoppers and what devices might be purchased during our brief store visit. There’s no clue we won’t pursue in our data hungry quest for information about all things Apple.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As analysts we seek to take both a short-term and long-term view of the company. Because data is both current and historical and projections are based on the extrapolation of data into future periods, there’s a data dependency in developing both short-term and long-term performance models.The more data the better and the more reliable the data the better the projections.This is why current data is the focus of so much discussion and debate.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple’s fiscal quarters are nothing more than static snapshots of a fast-moving enterprise object. Ninety-one day cycles come and go with a blur. Still, quarterly and yearly results are a standard for gauging a company’s performance.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Apple As An Episodic Enterprise</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The graph below illustrates Apple’s revenue growth by year since FY2005. The Apple iPhone was released in June of 2007 and the iPad was released in April of 2010. From FY2005 to the end of FY2013, Apple’s revenue rose 1,127%. In dollar terms, revenue rose from $13,931 billion in FY2005 to $170,910 billion in just eight years. The 8-year period encapsulates the migration of the Mac to Intel processors and the release of two new products that currently comprise just over 75% of the company’s reported revenue.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l5E9ALzba80/UxK88nAWPEI/AAAAAAAAA-I/tsICjj81h9w/s1600/Apple+Revenue+By+Fiscal+Year.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l5E9ALzba80/UxK88nAWPEI/AAAAAAAAA-I/tsICjj81h9w/s1600/Apple+Revenue+By+Fiscal+Year.jpg" height="108" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The graph below illustrates Apple’s earnings per share growth by year since FY2005. From FY2005 to FY2013, Apple’s earnings per share rose 2,457%. That’s a rise in earnings per share from $1.55 to $39.63. Apple reached its current high watermark for earnings per share in FY2012 at $44.16.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E6bZy2Us-8M/UxK9HWdZrjI/AAAAAAAAA-Q/ubrTTQu505Y/s1600/Apple+EPS+By+Fiscal+Year.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E6bZy2Us-8M/UxK9HWdZrjI/AAAAAAAAA-Q/ubrTTQu505Y/s1600/Apple+EPS+By+Fiscal+Year.jpg" height="107" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The falloff in earnings per share in FY2013 is for our members the source of ongoing discussion and debate as Apple works through a multi-quarter cycle of negative net income growth. Despite very high earnings, as analysts we want constant revenue and earnings growth and data-driven justification for the share price to move higher.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">&nbsp;</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In my view, Apple will be valued by the stock market based on the perceived pace of product innovation and the pace of earnings growth. While it might be argued there are better or more accurate ways to determine the company’s value, the share price will rise and fall on the company’s profit growth and perceived potential for profit growth. To the market, little else matters.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There are many members of the Braeburn Group that might disagree with my view of how the market values Apple. This is what makes active discussion and debate worthwhile. We learn with every twist and turn of the company’s fortunes and from the different points of view among our members.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Apple As A Global Enterprise</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The graph below illustrates the percentage of revenue contributed by each of Apple’s regional revenue segments in FY2013 that ended in late September.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mypb5TfFLSg/UxK1Eb_ylkI/AAAAAAAAA90/OHdk0yfS5pc/s1600/FY2013+Regional+Revenue+Mix.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mypb5TfFLSg/UxK1Eb_ylkI/AAAAAAAAA90/OHdk0yfS5pc/s1600/FY2013+Regional+Revenue+Mix.jpg" height="385" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The United States and China are currently the only two countries in the world that contribute 10% or more of Apple’s revenue. Japan may become the third country to enter that exclusive group.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The graph below illustrates the rates of regional revenue growth in each of Apple’s regional revenue segments.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DxSqHgLuCcw/UxK1ZHWJlYI/AAAAAAAAA94/3YMySrha9YY/s1600/FY2013+Revenue+Growth+By+Region.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DxSqHgLuCcw/UxK1ZHWJlYI/AAAAAAAAA94/3YMySrha9YY/s1600/FY2013+Revenue+Growth+By+Region.jpg" height="140" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Analyzing Apple is less of an effort to determine how many iPhones and iPads the company might sell in a 91-day period. It’s an effort to understand and forecast where in the world Apple is finding the best and most profitable markets for growth.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">New products or product categories and continued geographic expansion all factor into Apple’s future growth mix. It’s not just counting iPhone and iPad unit sales or the number of new iPhone carriers added. It’s a matter of finding and distilling data related to all elements in Apple’s revenue and earnings matrix.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It’s been four years since Apple released a major new product line. The original iPad debuted in April 2010. Apple is an episodic enterprise. It’s a company that since the start of the new millennium has reinvented itself as the maker of digital music players, smartphones and then tablets. While we don’t know with certainty what new product or product category Apple will announce in the coming months, history suggests a new product or product category is all but a certainty at this time.</span><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">At Apple’s annual meeting held on February 28th, Tim Cook encouraged short-term&nbsp;</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">traders not to invest in the company. In his remarks the CEO again promised new products were coming soon and his vision is for the long-term. I’ll take him at his word.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The Next Several Months Will Be Fun To Watch</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple’s next episode of strong revenue and earnings growth will commence within the next several months. But forecasting Apple’s future growth isn’t easy. It’s about new products and a whole lot more. What sells well on Main Street, USA will need to sell well in Beijing, London, Sydney, Tokyo and other major population centers around the world.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is what makes Apple analysis so much fun and an all-encompassing interest. For those that engage in our full-contact, participatory sport called Apple analysis, there’s much to learn and track each and every day.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple will soon begin a new episode of growth. For those that do choose to remain on the sidelines, grab the popcorn and turn on the Apple TV. The next several months will be fun to watch.&nbsp;During this time, the members of the Braeburn Group will be hard at work putting the different pieces of data together to understand where Apple is headed and forecast future rates of growth while chasing down every available clue. Don't ask us why we do it. It's just our version of a full-contact, participatory sport.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;"></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Disclosure: The author is long Apple shares</i></span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/Pti3lmcvtuI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2014/03/apple-as-episodic-enterprise.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-27795378336975297172014-02-15T17:28:00.003-08:002014-02-15T17:36:28.559-08:00Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, What’s The Fairest Glass Of All?<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the Cinderella fairytale, it was a glass slipper that revealed the identity of the young lady to the prince. In Snow White, it was a magic mirror that betrayed the identify and location of the tale’s heroine.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In today’s digital device world, glass will play an increasingly important role in product innovation and market success. It’s industry lore Steve Jobs opted to replace the plastic screen on the iPhone just weeks before the original iPhone’s release with what’s now called <a href="http://www.corninggorillaglass.com/" target="_blank">Gorilla Glass</a> from Corning. This apparently 11th-hour decision brought to market a Corning product that had been mothballed for years.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Corning’s Gorilla Glass has become both a successful and ubiquitous product in the global smartphone and tablet markets. But the drive for continued innovation and the desire for competitive advantages in the marketplace has Apple investing heavily is a new glass product for the company’s devices.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">On November 4, 2013, GT Advances Technologies (GTAT) <a href="http://investor.gtat.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=804195" target="_blank">announced a multi-year agreement with Apple</a> to provide sapphire glass for Apple products. Apple is investing $578 million upfront to fund development of a sapphire glass facility in Arizona. GTAT will reimburse Apple for the pre-payment beginning in 2015. But like all good stories, the plot thickens and sub-plots abound.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The Mythical iWatch</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There isn’t an Apple product enthusiast on the planet that isn’t expecting an Apple iWatch. Looking at Apple’s recent hires including the former CEO of Burberry, the former CEO of Yves Saint Laurent and other recent hires with expertise in various medical fields, matched-up with recent Apple management meetings with representatives of the FDA, speculation extends to talk of a high-quality watch with all kinds of health monitoring capabilities. But who knows?</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What is known is Katy Huberty at Morgan Stanley, one of the most respected Wall Street analysts covering Apple, has issued a note suggesting an iWatch could deliver up to $17.50 billion in revenue in the first year absent supply constraints. She’s not usually one to write fairytales.&nbsp;</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Apple currently uses sapphire glass to cover the camera on the iPhone 5s and the fingerprint reader on the device’s home button. Sapphire glass is also used by luxury watch markers to cover the face of their products.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">&nbsp;</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Looking Beyond The iWatch</b><br />Looking beyond the yet-to-be-announced iWatch, Apple has filed an<a href="http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&amp;Sect2=HITOFF&amp;d=PG01&amp;p=1&amp;u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&amp;r=1&amp;f=G&amp;l=50&amp;s1=20130236699.PGNR.&amp;OS=DN/20130236699&amp;RS=DN/20130236699" target="_blank"> interesting patent application</a> consisting of different ways to fuse sapphire glass layers to strengthen manufactured sapphire glass panels.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">This patent application is definitely for fusing sapphire glass panels in sizes larger than what’s needed for a watch display. Although sapphire is among the hardest materials on the planet, fusing two panels cut on different planes will further strengthen sapphire glass for uses in particular applications.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Following everything from patent applications to the size of the Arizona facility and<a href="http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2014/02/new-sapphire-manufacturing-equipment-arrives-at-apple-plant.html" target="_blank"> the volume of&nbsp;</a></span><span style="font-size: 12px;"><a href="http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2014/02/new-sapphire-manufacturing-equipment-arrives-at-apple-plant.html" target="_blank">specialty</a></span><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2014/02/new-sapphire-manufacturing-equipment-arrives-at-apple-plant.html" target="_blank">&nbsp;equipment shipped</a> to the new facility for sapphire glass production&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">suggests Apple is planning more than watch displays for sapphire glass.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>The different pieces of evidence suggest very high sapphire glass production levels for whatever Apple plans to do with the product. The manufacturing capabilities of the new plant are for levels of sapphire glass production that are absolutely outsized compared to current industry demand.</i></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>All Good Stories Have A Fair Amount Of Risk</b><br /><a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=gtat&amp;ql=1" target="_blank">GTAT</a> may trade as an almost pure Apple derivative and the company will have dramatically reduced gross margin per revenue dollar. The shares may bounce up and down based on the latest iWatch rumors and speculation about sapphire glass production levels at the Arizona facility. Apple excels at drilling down costs of components and squeezing every dollar it can from suppliers. Because Apple is financing the manufacturing facility’s development the company will be pushing down its costs per sapphire glass panel. High short interest, a low share price and heavy dependence on Apple for future revenue growth makes GTAT a volatility trifecta.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>There’s No Magic Mirror</b><br />Whether or not GT Advanced Technologies is a modern-day “Cinderella story” is well beyond the scope of this blog. I neither recommend or suggest the company for investment. However, I am intrigued by Apple’s sapphire glass agreement with the company. I</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">f GTAT is to become the newest Apple supplier to find great success providing components for the maker of the world’s most popular digital devices, it will be revealed not by a magic mirror but by the passage of time.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This isn’t a fairytale. But it is a fascinating story to watch as the plot and sub-plots continue to unfold. Only time will tell if sapphire glass becomes Apple’s fairest glass of all.&nbsp;GTAT is looking for a very happy ending to this unfolding story.&nbsp;</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><i>Disclosure: The author is long GTAT shares</i></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/j5el-_rvJVo" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2014/02/mirror-mirror-on-wall-whats-fairest.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-9535610494879906962014-02-09T18:56:00.000-08:002014-02-09T21:46:00.706-08:00The One Solution To Apple’s “Problems”<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Apple’s Invitation To Come Out And Play</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I’ve been following Apple since the first time I heard the original Mac’s startup chime. The original Mac was alluring and inviting as if to say “come out and play.” My investment in Apple goes well beyond the interests of a shareholder. Over the past 30 years I’ve invested literally tens of thousands of dollars in Apple-branded products and every day and throughout the day I use the company’s devices to enhance the way I work and the way I choose to live.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I no longer subscribe to a cable service and our household receives its entertainment content through Apple TV. We’re about to dump our landline because members of our household use iPhones for voice communication. Thanks to the iPad, I no longer need a laptop and apps are far less expensive for productivity and content acquisition and consumption than traditional applications.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Over the next few years our household will save thousands of dollars from forgoing cable service, landlines and purchases of new laptop computers. Even the Super Bowl is now streamed over the Internet. What important service does cable TV provide at a cost of over $100 per month? I have a maxed out AT&amp;T Family Plan for our iPhones and yet collectively we use less than the 700 minutes available under our plan. There’s no need for a landline.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For many in our society today, voice-only communication is the communication method of last resort. For intra-household communication, FaceTime is way more cool than voice-only communication and messaging is far more efficient than voice calls to relay shards of information or quick updates to family and friends. In our household we run more of a risk of a “throttle back” notice from AT&amp;T for data usage on so-called “unlimited plans” than we risk using too many voice minutes.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>30 years from the introduction of the original Macintosh, Apple hasn’t steered away from the path of product innovation. But at this time and until the next big new product announcement, innovation from Apple is subtle but no less impactful for those who invest in the company’s eco-system of products and services.&nbsp;</i></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The “Problems” With Steve Jobs</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the years following the first exit of Steve Jobs, I watched a parade of people occupy the CEO’s chair. I was covering Apple in late 1996 when then CEO Gil Amelio stunned the Apple enthusiast community with the announcement the company wasn’t buying BeOS to provide the foundation for the next generation Mac OS but was purchasing NeXT and the NeXTStep operating system to complete the daunting task. With the acquisition of NeXT, Steve Jobs was returning to the company as a special advisor.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">From within the Mac community screams that the return of Steve Jobs to Apple would ruin the company were on high volume and the term "mercurial" was used to describe him so frequently, a casual observer might think Steve was the man’s middle name. Within months of his return to the CEO’s chair in July of 1997, the term mercurial to describe him was seldom heard anymore and little more than one-year later, the term “beleaguered” was no longer used as an informal prefix to the company’s name.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The “Problems” With Sir Jony Ive</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I recently finished reading <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/jony-ive/id630828116?mt=11&amp;uo=4" target="_blank">Leander Kahney's book about Jony Ive</a>. The book contains colorful insights into the career of Jony Ive at Apple. Contrary to common belief, Jony Ive began his career at Apple years before Steve Jobs returned to the company. No one can dispute his design genius nor the influence his design leadership has contributed to Apple’s amazing success over the past 16 years and the influence of his work on Apple’s products in the twenty two years he has been associated with the company.&nbsp;</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In addition to his influence on such products as the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, he was also involved in the development of the Apple MessagePad, the Macintosh Cube and the cost-challenged original iPhone 5.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Jony Ive’s design genius and approach to product development often incorporates use of materials such as aluminum and glass in revolutionary ways and production techniques Apple must pioneer to bring new products to market. Product success isn’t guaranteed and breakthrough designs have inherent market risks.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>New products and new product designs take time. Although it seems like a long time from the release of the original iPad in 2010 to today, the design of the original iPhone released in 2007 was spawned from an existing tablet project.&nbsp;Initial development of the iPad preceded development of the iPhone though the iPad came to market three years later.</i></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple’s attention to detail, decisions to create products requiring pioneering manufacturing techniques and products that disrupt sleepy old economy industries take time to develop, design and manufacture. Four years since the release of the iPad to today is really no time at all when disruptive new products are the expectation for Apple.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>The “Problems” With Tim Cook</b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There isn’t a person on the planet with greater knowledge and understanding of how Apple operates its businesses than Tim Cook. As much as Steve Jobs was a visionary and Sir Jony Ive is a design genius, Tim Cook has business development, supply chain management and strategic planning skills unmatched by any CEO on the planet.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Hired by Apple in 1998, Tim Cook is as much an architect of Apple’s global empire as the two other luminaries mentioned above. Tim Cook is not a “barker.” He’s a hard-driven and determined executive who has mastered the quiet work needed to deliver long-term success.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In response to seemingly disappointing December quarter results and underwhelming March quarter guidance, Tim Cook acted quickly to use a portion of Apple’s huge cash pile to repurchase $14 billion in stock. The $14 billion Tim Cook deployed in two weeks to repurchase shares is equal to Apple’s reported revenue in fiscal year 2005. The repurchase is only seen as small by Apple’s outsized standards.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Tim Cook is not a showman. But Steve Jobs did not run Apple alone. Without Tim Cook’s masterful operational designs, Apple would not be a $170 billion revenue enterprise today.&nbsp;</i></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The “Problems” With Too Much Cash</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple has cash problems. The first problem is the company has a lot of it. Net of debt, the company had over $140 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities on its balance sheet as of December 28, 2013. It seems everyone has an opinion on how Apple should invest the massive sum or how it should be returned to shareholders. Despite a plan to repurchase a total of $60 billion of shares by the end of 2015 and no matter the fact Apple is among the biggest dividend payers on the planet, the talk of what Apple should do with its cash never ceases.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The second problem is the bulk of the cash is outside the United States. Although Apple imputes and reports a US tax liability on its foreign earnings, the taxes aren’t paid until Apple repatriates the money. In the grand schemes of things, amassing a huge cash pile and holding off on the remittance of taxes until such time as the taxes are due are enviable problems for a corporate entity. If Apple deploys its foreign-earned cash on foreign ventures, no US taxes are due on the funds.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The “Problems” With Deferred Revenue</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As of December 28, 2013, Apple had $11.428 billion in deferred revenue on its balance sheet. That’s revenue received with recognition postponed to later periods. The recent increase in deferred revenue per Mac, iPhone and iPad sold influenced Apple's December quarter results and March quarter guidance. The revenue deferred has no associated deferred costs. Apple picks up the full costs associated with the acquisition of the deferred revenue in the current period while deferring recognition of the revenue to a later time. Eventually, the increase in deferred revenue will benefit reported revenue in seasonally low fiscal quarters while softening the increase in reported revenue in seasonally strong quarters. In other words, revenue isn’t lost. It’s revenue to be recognized in future quarters. Of the current deferred revenue total, $3.071 billion will be reported in periods beyond this fiscal year.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The One Solution To Apple’s “Problems”</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While many of us adopt Apple products to enhance the ways we choose to work, communicate and live, there’s a prevailing belief Apple’s best days are in the pages of history and not on today’s horizon.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That was the prevailing belief before the return of Steve Jobs in 1996, before the introduction of the iPod in 2001, before the release of the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad drew the loud cries of skeptics as much as it drew applause when it was announced by Steve Jobs in early 2010.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For those of us who actively track the company and follow company-related news from many and varied sources, it’s more than obvious new products and even new product “categories” are on the horizon. This doesn’t mean Apple isn’t keeping its product plans secret. It does mean no matter how hard the company may try, bits of information from different sources leave a rather compelling evidence trail. The fun of attempting to put the pieces of evidence together is almost as much fun as using the company’s popular products.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">While we wait on Apple’s next breakthrough product and the expected "newfound success" it will bring to one of the world’s largest and most innovative enterprises, I remember the days when Apple was beleaguered, when a famous entrepreneur and CEO of an Apple&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px;">competitor&nbsp;</span></i><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>said the solution to Apple’s problems was to sell-off the company and return the cash to shareholders. How ironic Apple is now returning to shareholders over $100 billion in four years through dividends and share repurchases while still going strong.</i>&nbsp;</span></span><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While I wait on Apple’s next big step, I’m saving over $1,500 per year on cable, will soon save about $600 per year on a landline and save thousands over the next four years by no longer needing a laptop.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple’s next big step will resolve the company’s “problems” as they are perceived today. In the meantime, I’ll take a look at what new movies are available through Apple TV, step into the <a href="http://braeburngroup.com/" target="_blank">Braeburn Group</a> to discuss what the different pieces of information available suggest about Apple’s next big step and appreciate the fact Apple has so many “problems” that can be easily resolved with the next big product announcement that will come tomorrow someday, but not tomorrow today.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/wx-V0gyqb8M" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2014/02/the-one-solution-to-apples-problems.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-37923019535734384032013-11-02T13:43:00.002-07:002013-11-02T14:19:44.345-07:00Apple And The Renaissance Of Hardware Monetization<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As the moderator of the <a href="http://braeburngroup.com/" target="_blank">Braeburn Group</a> discussion community, I am in constant contact with members of our global network of independent analysts. For the active participants in the Braeburn Group, Apple analysis is its own form of a virtual full contact sport.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Since the release of Apple’s September quarter results and December quarter guidance earlier this week, discussions about Apple’s revised revenue deferral program and management’s decision to provide OS X upgrades and copies of the company’s Keynote, Numbers and Pages productivity applications free to iOS device and Mac owners have reached a fever pitch. Tracking Apple’s new deferred revenue program and its impact on each quarter’s results has its own challenges. Determining the rationale of foregoing revenue on OS X upgrades and sales of the company’s productivity apps is a sub-plot for conversation.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In this post I won’t go knee-deep into the analysis of Apple’s financial results or the fiscal impact of the company’s strategic decisions mentioned above. I reserve financial analysis for my <a href="http://www.postsateventide.com/" target="_blank"><i>Posts At Eventide</i> blog</a>. What I will mention in this post is a concept I’m calling <i>Apple and the Renaissance of Hardware Monetization</i>. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Apple’s New Deferred Revenue Scheme</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">During the September quarter conference call with analysts, Apple announced the company has increased the revenue deferred on each iOS device sold to as much as $25 and increased the revenue deferred on each Mac sold to $40. The revenue deferred on each iOS device sold will be recognized over 24 months and the revenue deferred on each Mac sold will be recognized over 48 months from the time of sale.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Nbp24fUarYk/UnVRcNNZSSI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/Td1Rbhn746I/s1600/iCloud.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Nbp24fUarYk/UnVRcNNZSSI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/Td1Rbhn746I/s320/iCloud.tiff" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">iCloud image courtesy of Apple</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The justification for the increase in the amounts deferred on iOS device and Macintosh PCs is to better reflect the value of software and services provides to device owners at no additional cost and to reflect the value of the implied guarantee Apple provides to consumers they will receive free OS upgrades over the anticipated economic life of the devices they purchase.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Accounting rules require the deferral of revenue at the time of a device's sale when enhanced features and functionality are provided at no additional cost at a later date. From an accounting standpoint, Apple’s decision to defer revenue is sound and justified. The amount of the deferred revenue on each unit sold reflects management’s estimated value of the OS upgrades, software and services Apple plans to distribute to the device owner following the date of original purchase.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Keynote, Numbers and Pages</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I am an active user of the Apple’s productivity apps. Keynote and Pages are excellent products and iCloud integration provides for seamless workflow across all of my Apple-branded devices. Under Apple’s product and services model, I can access, create and edit Keynote, Numbers and Pages documents on any of the devices I carry and I can drive presentations using the company’s productivity apps at any time from my iPhone, iPad or Mac. I also use Numbers exclusively in my analysis work. I’ve adapted to Numbers because of the way Apple’s spreadsheet solution integrates with Keynote and Pages. While in my view Numbers is an application in need of active development, I use it almost exclusively because of the seamless integration with Keynote and Pages and anywhere access to documents via iCloud.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>A Bit of PC Industry History</b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When the original Macintosh debuted in 1984, it revolutionized the PC industry and sparked the desktop published revolution. At the time of its release, it came equipped with Apple-sourced software that allowed Mac owners to create documents and express creativity in ways not previously available to personal computer owners at the time.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In partnership with Adobe Systems, which developed the PostScript language, Apple created a lucrative market for premium-priced PCs that changed publishing forever. Unknown to many, Microsoft Excel was originally a spreadsheet solution for the Mac.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple thrived following the release of the Macintosh because the company monetized the hardware. Although software and the unique operating system Apple developed for the Mac were essential for success, hardware monetization through premium-priced Macintosh PCs, was the source of the company’s financial success and profit margins on the Mac were enviably high.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In 1988 I purchase a Macintosh PC and an Apple-branded dot matrix-style printer for my office at a cost of over $3,000. Today, in non-inflation adjusted dollars, that same $3,000, now 25 years later, can purchase a 27” iMac, an iPad Air and an iPhone 5s on a subsidized contract with $500&nbsp; remaining to cover much of a year’s cellular services contract for the iPhone through AT&amp;T.&nbsp;</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The prices for personal technology products, both nominally and relatively, have fallen dramatically over the past quarter century.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Over the past 25 years, Microsoft created a global empire by suppressing or commoditizing the cost of computing hardware in favor of rich prices and premiums for computing software and services. Today, Apple, despite the dramatic drop in cost of personal technology products, has the highest gross margin among PC and handheld device makers on the planet. Apple commands rich premiums through the wedding of hardware, software and services and by not licensing it operating systems to low-cost device makers. Apple’s approach to the market is the antithesis of Microsoft’s market model.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Apple and The Renaissance of Hardware Monetization</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">By choosing to forego the revenue generated from the sales of operating system upgrades, the revenue generated from the sales of Keynote, Pages and Numbers and by offering iCloud services at no cost to device owners, Apple is again upending the digital device markets through the delivery of valuable software and services at no cost to consumers. Consumers also obtain an implied right to receive future software and services enhancements over the anticipated economic life of the Apple products they choose to buy.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Active and often spirited discussions about Apple’s deferred revenue model and the company’s strategic decision to offer services, software and future operating system upgrades at no cost to device owners will continue to rage among members of the Braeburn Group. But there’s no disagreement among members of our global network of independent analysts that Apple will continue to drive innovation and continue to increase the value proposition of the company’s products.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple’s approach of wedding the company’s hardware, operating systems, software and services in a complete package for &nbsp;consumers while providing OS, software and services upgrades for free over the anticipated economic life of each device sold is a winning strategy for today and tomorrow.&nbsp;</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple is crafting a renaissance of the hardware monetization model and this renaissance will provide enhanced value to consumers while rewarding the company with higher unit sales volume and greater profits over time.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/fq9NY1H95NQ" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2013/11/apple-and-renaissance-of-hardware.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-39882706976947190072013-06-01T21:41:00.001-07:002013-06-01T21:54:43.236-07:00Lessons From An iMac Hard Drive Failure<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I need a new iMac.&nbsp; It's just that I don't want a new iMac yet. When the hard drive on my&nbsp; 24" iMac from 2008 failed last weekend, it was either find a work around or plunk down hard dollars on a new machine. I chose the former and not the latter.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I keep my gear for as long as practically possible. For example, my 2002 PowerBook G4 sits triumphantly on an ottoman-style cushion in the living room. It's in pretty much daily use for light web surfing and other basic tasks. I want to keep my current iMac in service until at least the next iMac refresh expected in the fall.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I follow the tech market closely and in particular I follow Apple. Before I replace my iMac with a new one, I want the latest Intel chipset and whatever incremental upgrade to the discreet graphics card that may come in the next refresh. In the meantime, I had to replace my iMac's hard drive and restore my user accounts, applications and data as quickly as possible. I decided to use an external drive to restore my data and extend the useful life of the iMac.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>A Quick Trip To An Apple Retail Store</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Because the drive's failure was caused by a physical disk problem and not corrupted data, neither Apple's disk utility or Alsoft's Disk Warrior could access the drive. Rather than deal with the hassle of installing a new internal drive, I purchased a <a href="http://store.apple.com/us/product/H9376ZM/A/lacie-500gb-rugged-hard-drive-triple-usb-30-7200-rpm" target="_blank">LaCie 500GB Rugged Hard Drive with FireWire 800 and USB 3.0</a>.&nbsp; Although the 2008 iMac doesn't have a USB 3.0 port, I determined FireWire 800 would work adequately until I replace the iMac in the fall and having a USB 3.0 drive around would continue to come in handy.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Time Machine and Time Capsule</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For years I've used an Apple Time Capsule for Time Machine backups. It works well despite the sometimes sluggish wireless network performance when big backups commence and there's other traffic on the home network.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Still, having the hourly backup regimen kick-in automatically ensures I won't endure a data loss catastrophe when a Mac hard drive goes bad. Despite the hard drive failure, all of my drive's data remained intact on the Time Capsule. It was restoring the backed up data to a new drive without OS X Mountain Lion initially installed on the drive that created some issues.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>No Mountain Lion, No Easy Restoration</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Upgrading to the latest versions of OS X via the Apple App Store is a quick and easy process. Although I should have made a bootable Mountain Lion install disk when I updated all of the Mac's in the house, logging into the App Store to download a copy from Apple for each installation seemed more convenient. Until now...</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The Legacy OS Odyssey</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With the hard drive gone, I had to start from scratch. The last physical disc I had on hand was Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6). To gain access to the App Store required 10.6.8 but that combined update was not on my Snow Leopard install disc. That was a separate download following the Snow Leopard installation.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Using the Snow Leopard disc to start the Mac I could not perform a successful restoration of the Time Machine data stored on the Time Capsule. The attempt failed twice. For the third attempt I installed Snow Leopard on the external drive, downloaded and installed the 10.6.8 update via Software Update and downloaded Mountain Lion through the Apple App Store. Because I had already purchased Mountain Lion, there were no additional costs for the download.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Migration Assistant Versus Time Machine Restore</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With Mountain Lion installed on my new external drive I no longer had to perform a full Time Machine restore regimen. I used Migration Assistant in the Utilities folder to bring over my applications, user accounts and documents. This was less time consuming and problematic than attempting to recover the full contents of the failed hard drive.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Migration Assistant had issues restoring data to a new drive with an admin user name nearly identical to one used previously. To eliminate the problem, I created an admin account on the external drive with a different name than the user account being restored. I logged in through the new admin account and restored all of the users, applications and documents stored on the Time Machine backup.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eUVnwuec6YY/UarAth66JtI/AAAAAAAAAvI/UvVqC17kyN4/s1600/iCloud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eUVnwuec6YY/UarAth66JtI/AAAAAAAAAvI/UvVqC17kyN4/s200/iCloud.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9px; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">iCloud image courtesy of Apple</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>iCloud</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I now consider <a href="http://www.apple.com/icloud/" target="_blank">iCloud</a> a near necessity. Not only does it allow users to share documents across Apple-branded devices, it also provides access to contacts and iCould-based services from any iOS-based device. Even with a hard drive failure on my Mac, I was able to keep current on my iCould email and reference Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents created on my Mac and stored in the cloud.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Lessons Learned</b><br />Restoring my data following a drive failure took some work and took a bit of time. There are a few lessons learned from the experience which include:</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><ol><li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Time Machine is an effective means to backup and protect data in the event of a hard disk failure.</span></li><li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Creating a <a href="http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/how-to-create-a-bootable-backup-mountain-lion-install-disk/" target="_blank">bootable installation disk of the latest version of OS X</a>&nbsp;will save time and effort in restoring data to a new drive.</span></li><li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">iCloud is essential for remaining productive while remedying a failed Mac hard drive.</span></li></ol><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Restore Now, Replace Later</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Because I work hard to keep my Macs in service for years, I watch for newer technologies to emerge before making a replacement decision. Purchasing an external drive for my 2008 iMac extends the life of the Mac until I choose to replace it. Having a FireWire 800/USB 3.0 external drive comes in handy today and the drive will make it easier to transition to a new iMac later.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/PyhIMiZlDoI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2013/06/lessons-from-imac-hard-drive-failure.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-66778356704059888362013-04-06T21:29:00.003-07:002013-04-06T21:29:41.743-07:00Goodbye Cable, Hello Apple TV!<br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Last week I received a courtesy call from an AT&amp;T U-verse representative asking for feedback on the company's Digital TV, High Speed Internet &amp; Voice services. It was a spontaneous decision, but I took the opportunity while on the call to cancel the digital TV service.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">OK, so it wasn't so spontaneous. I had been thinking about canceling the TV service while investing a few of the dollars saved for higher-speed Internet. We have a large household of active digital device users. We need bandwidth. We need bandwidth more than we need hundreds of cable channels no one in our home ever views.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I appreciated the courtesy call from AT&amp;T and how quickly the first representative passed me to another representative to make my account changes. We now have the additional bandwidth desired and an empty spot under the TV where the Motorola cable receiver used to sit. The receiver has been sent back to AT&amp;T and the Apple TV now has a shelf under the TV all its own.</span><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The Apple TV</b></span></span><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We've had an <a href="http://www.apple.com/appletv/" target="_blank">Apple TV</a> since the release of the quirky first generation model that always seemed to need a restart and took forever to download and store content. The newer Apple TV models (generations 2 &amp; 3) only stream content and can be accessed from other Apple-branded devices around the house.&nbsp;</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D2_MX1nwjuo/UWDrcPVV1tI/AAAAAAAAAqg/LyuV1GZdhPc/s1600/AppleTV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D2_MX1nwjuo/UWDrcPVV1tI/AAAAAAAAAqg/LyuV1GZdhPc/s400/AppleTV.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9px; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple TV image courtesy of Apple</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For the $99 purchase price, the new Apple TV provides Internet-based access to the iTunes Store, Netflix, Hulu Plus and a variety of other free and subscription-based content portals. It also facilitates the wireless streaming of iTunes content from other devices via the company's proprietary AirPlay protocol.&nbsp;The newer Apple TVs are easy to set-up and easy to use.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Netflix and Hulu Plus</b></span><br /> <span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We have a <a href="http://movies.netflix.com/WiHome" target="_blank">Netflix</a> account and with the $90 per month saved on cable TV services, I decided to go shopping for other content to be viewed through the Apple TV. It was suggested by members of the household that we evaluate Hulu Plus for TV shows while keeping our Netflix account for movies. While there are pros and cons to both services, I decided to add <a href="http://www.hulu.com/plus?cmp=283" target="_blank">Hulu Plus</a> to increase the content repertoire for on-demand viewing through the Apple TV.</span><br /> <div style="min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The High Cost of Cable TV Service</b></span><br /> <span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Cable TV is extraordinarily expensive for the few channels our household members viewed each month. I didn't consider surfing through a seemingly endless number of cable TV channels a leisure time sport. I considered it wandering through a listing of channels I paid to access each month but never watched.&nbsp;</span><br /> <div style="min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Cost Savings and Convenience&nbsp;</b></span><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With an opportunity to save about $1,000 per year, the decision to cancel cable service wasn't a difficult one. Combined, Netflix and Hulu Plus cost about $30 per month. For less than $400 per year we have a much more cost-effective home entertainment content solution and a net savings of about $600 per year.&nbsp;</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Additionally, the Netflix and Hulu Plus accounts can be accessed and used from any location and from any of our Apple-branded devices.&nbsp;</span><br /> <div style="min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The savings are real and in the first week since canceling cable I've watched more content through Apple TV than I watched on cable in the past year. This lower-cost solution provides for on-demand movies and TV shows for a fraction of the cost of cable service. Apparently saying goodbye to cable service is fairly common. All I had to do was bring the U-verse TV receiver to a local UPS Store and it was packaged and shipped back to AT&amp;T for free.</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/lByhsoM6MsQ" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2013/04/goodbye-cable-hello-apple-tv.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-65715933320221377182012-07-01T10:19:00.000-07:002012-07-01T10:19:43.363-07:00Michael Tsai's Spam Sieve Solution<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As the author of the<i> <a href="http://www.postsateventide.com/" target="_blank">Posts At Eventide</a></i> blog&nbsp;and founder of the <a href="http://braeburngroup.com/" target="_blank">Braeburn Group</a>&nbsp;of independent analysts, I use a number of different email addresses and a few of the addresses have wide Internet exposure. Spam is a problem. It's been a problem and will remain a problem for anyone engaging a large, global audience of readers in active and ongoing discussions.</span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">To control spam I use Michael Tsai's <a href="http://c-command.com/spamsieve/">SpamSieve</a>. I've used SpamSieve since its initial commercial release years ago and I've used the product through each of its successive commercial iterations. I use the product because it works, works well and can be "trained" to meet the specific needs of each product user. SpamSieve uses a Bayesian approach to spam filtering and the more it's "trained" by the user the more accurately the product identifies spam messages.</div></div></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4JG2cxcTwYM/T--KdzUEF9I/AAAAAAAAAVE/bPTOIzEwZok/s1600/spamsieve.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4JG2cxcTwYM/T--KdzUEF9I/AAAAAAAAAVE/bPTOIzEwZok/s1600/spamsieve.jpg" /></a></span></div></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Although SpamSieve is a Mac-only product, it will work in conjunction with a Mac to filter spam on iOS-based devices sharing access to email accounts. <a href="http://c-command.com/spamsieve/manual-ah/iphone-spam-filtering">Instructions</a> on setting up SpamSieve on a Mac to filter email traffic to all devices can be found at the SpamSieve site. Overnight and throughout the day SpamSieve filters all of the messages sent to my email accounts and moves suspected spam away from my inboxes and into designated spam folders.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Pictured below is screen shot of my Apple Mail menu and the contents of my color-coded SpamSieve folder. The colors reflect SpamSieve's spam probability rating for each piece of suspect email.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-O3qT6NlXovk/T--K8v_orCI/AAAAAAAAAVM/O6UySLRRrhQ/s1600/SpamSieve-Spam+Box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-O3qT6NlXovk/T--K8v_orCI/AAAAAAAAAVM/O6UySLRRrhQ/s320/SpamSieve-Spam+Box.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I've known Michael Tsai for the better part of twenty years. He holds a Master of Engineering, Computer Science degree from MIT. SpamSieve is his brainchild and as long as I've known him I've respected his work. The product's effectiveness evidences SpamSieve's smart design while its ease-of-use belies the sophistication that's brewed into this comprehensive spam solution. SpamSieve differentiates between email accounts and factors address traffic and incidences of spam on each email account in determining the mail it filters.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The more a user works with SpamSieve, the more the product responds to the user's spam classification preferences. Pictured below is a screen shot of Apple Mail's message menu with SpamSieve's added options to manage and classify messages.&nbsp;</span>When a message is reclassified as spam it's automatically moved from your inbox to a spam folder.&nbsp;</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pZBfagqgeAk/T-_RleZwMzI/AAAAAAAAAVY/GwUzX6Dxqgs/s1600/MessageMenu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pZBfagqgeAk/T-_RleZwMzI/AAAAAAAAAVY/GwUzX6Dxqgs/s320/MessageMenu.jpg" width="292" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br /></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">SpamSieve is my recommended solution for active professionals seeking a comprehensive spam solution that can be tailored by each user to meet their individual needs. It's available for download for only $30. A Family Pack license is $48 and a free trial version is also available at the SpamSieve website.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/7tFUwbAKC70" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2012/07/michael-tsais-spam-sieve-solution.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-42909231905959755152011-08-15T16:06:00.000-07:002011-09-03T11:02:38.493-07:00A Home Town Apple Store<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div style="text-align: right;"></div><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Santa Clarita, California is a classic example of an American boomburb and it's a city that has come into its own over the past twenty years amidst the continuing growth and population migration in Southern California. Santa Clarita is situated about 35 miles from downtown Los Angeles and north of the terminuses of the three-digit numbered highways that carry traffic through and around America's second largest city.</span><br /><br /><i>Although Santa Clarita has grown dramatically over the past couple of decades, residents can still hear the sounds of freight trains as they ramble their way across what was once a remote and semi-arid scape. In a bygone era the area served as the location for many Hollywood westerns.&nbsp;</i><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-48v1CZVFrBg/TkipYVp3qaI/AAAAAAAAAJE/TNHUxQSGqHM/s1600/CoC-PerformingArtsCenter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-48v1CZVFrBg/TkipYVp3qaI/AAAAAAAAAJE/TNHUxQSGqHM/s1600/CoC-PerformingArtsCenter.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">COC Performing Arts Center</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><b>The City of Santa Clarita</b><br />Incorporated in 1987, the<a href="http://www.santa-clarita.com/"> City of Santa Clarita</a> has an estimated population of 176,971 and is home to the world renowned <a href="http://calarts.edu/">CalArts</a>, the burgeoning <a href="http://www.canyons.edu/">College of the Canyons</a> and is near the popular <a href="http://www.sixflags.com/magicMountain/index.aspx">Six Flags Magic Mountain</a> and <a href="http://www.sixflags.com/hurricaneHarborLA/index.aspx">Six Flags Hurricane Harbor</a> amusement parks. The city is now the site for a new Apple retail store that recently opened at the<a href="http://www.apple.com/retail/valenciatowncenter/"> Valencia Town Center</a>. A home town Apple store is one more indication that Santa Clarita has not only come into its own, the city has also come of age.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br /><div style="text-align: left;"></div></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><b>Apple Retail Stores</b></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">At my last count there were 50 Apple retail stores in California, representing about 15% of the total number of retail stores in the company's global chain. No matter the fact there are a couple of dozen Apple retail stores within a two-hour drive from the city, having a store within a twenty minute drive of most residents of the Santa Clarita Valley will be a boost to Mac and iPad sales in the local area.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>I shop at Apple retail stores the way others might shop at home improvement stores. There's often something new to see and there's usually something for which I'd like to save to buy.&nbsp;</i></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Just over ten years ago I stood in line to visit the original Glendale, California retail store on its opening day. It was the second Apple retail store to ever open and followed the first retail store opening in the Tysons Corner, Virginia by three hours. From that day to this day, about 340 Apple retail stores have opened around the world.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yCU_ucNvocc/TkmS9RMOdXI/AAAAAAAAAJI/a2zp-aYHP-g/s1600/AppleStore-ValenciaTownCenter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="197" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yCU_ucNvocc/TkmS9RMOdXI/AAAAAAAAAJI/a2zp-aYHP-g/s320/AppleStore-ValenciaTownCenter.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Apple Retail Store at the Valencia Town Center</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">In the most recent four fiscal quarters, Apple retail stores generated revenue of $14.109 billion and represented about 14.1% of the $100.322 billion in revenue the company reported during that time. Over this 12-month period the retail stores sold 3.29 million Macs or more than 21% of the company's total Mac unit sales of $15.407 million units.&nbsp;</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />In the last holiday quarter, the busiest time of the year for the Apple retail stores, revenue averaged over $12 million per store and the margin generated by the stores exceeded $1 billion. These stores create local jobs, generate local tax revenue and increase customer traffic to the shopping centers in which many of the stores are located.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Apple's retail stores are at the epicenter of the Apple product mutual halo effect. Management has stated repeatedly 50% of Mac buyers at the retail stores are new to the platform. The Apple retail stores sell Macs and the Apple iPad is a traffic magnet for the stores.&nbsp;</i></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Apple carefully selects the location for each new Apple store. Proximity to colleges and universities is among the site selection criteria as well as particular consumer demographics about the local community. The new Apple retail store at the Valencia Town Center is a boost for Apple product users in the area and I look forward to frequent visits to what's now my favorite local store.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><b>A City Comes of Age</b></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Santa Clarita is the fourth largest city in the Los Angeles County expanse and is the twenty fourth largest city in the nation's most populous state. From rural studio back lot to boomburb, Santa Clarita now has a home town Apple store.&nbsp;It's a city that has come into its own and it's a city with a new store for the digital age.&nbsp;</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/AL6Mh9nXcSA" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.com24201 Valencia Blvd, Valencia Mall Shopping Center, Valencia, CA 91355, USA34.416061 -118.5576659999999834.4138485 -118.56131399999998 34.4182735 -118.55401799999999http://www.theipadchronicles.com/2011/08/home-town-apple-store.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-1217609613167305002011-05-22T15:03:00.000-07:002011-09-03T11:03:00.526-07:00Why Time Machine is a Mac Essential<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In our large household the collective investment in iTunes content might rival the GDP of a few small island nations (slight exaggeration). From music to movies and from photos to college papers, our hard drives are filled with items that can not be easily replaced if they could be replaced at all.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Today's Macs are not only the storage centers for our desktop or laptop data, they also store the backup data for our iPhones, iPads and iPods. Without a reliable backup system a lost hard drive can be the source of months of frustration, weeks of lost work and vanished memories of special occasions and everyday moments that become special when viewed through the passage of time.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">To reduce the risk of lost data disasters in our household we deploy a regular <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is-macosx/time-machine.html">Time Machine</a> backup regimen. Last week one of our laptop hard drives gave out. After a year of near 24/7 use by a college student in the household who makes generous use of Netflix streams in between bouts of school work, the drive became unresponsive. A quick trip to an Apple retail store (AppleCare is another Mac essential) the MacBook Pro had a new drive installed and all that was needed to restore the old drive's data was an easy Time Machine step following the new drive's startup and the welcome message from Apple.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b9LyhjId9rs/TdmHBGjifQI/AAAAAAAAAE0/NS8WqdH-lAg/s1600/TimeMachine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b9LyhjId9rs/TdmHBGjifQI/AAAAAAAAAE0/NS8WqdH-lAg/s400/TimeMachine.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br /></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">My preferred Time Machine regimen is to backup data on the hour using an <a href="http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/">Apple Time Capsule</a> that also serves as the household's Wi-Fi base station. In the case of the hard drive that failed last week the data had been backed up using Time Machine to a local external hard drive. The Time Machine data restore operation took under an hour to complete and all data was restored as if the user hadn't missed a beat. While flash drives and optical media can be deployed to backup work or school files, the automatic backup regimen and the thorough backup routine of Time Machine makes it a better and more comprehensive backup solution.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As the author of the <i><a href="http://www.postsateventide.com/">Posts At Eventide</a></i> blog my financial analysis worksheets are stored all over my drive along with several years of financial reports and regulatory filings from the nation's top technology companies. Absent a regular backup regimen replacing the information on my drive would require months of personal work and needless hours spent searching the Internet to replace volumes of lost data.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Time Machine is free and is installed with the latest versions of Mac OS X. Time Machine provides for the peace of mind that comes from knowing your Mac's backup data is a virtually up-to-the-minute copy of what's on your drive and all music, movies, photos and personal files are backed up safely in the event of a lost hard drive, a corrupted drive or a more complex repair issue involving your Mac.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Large capacity external backup drives can be purchased for around $100. A Time Capsule can be purchased for $299. Either of these backup options are worth the price when some of what's at risk might be considered priceless.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/UMiu49HQdKI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2011/05/why-time-machine-is-mac-essential.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-71710976931396299162011-04-20T08:29:00.000-07:002011-09-03T11:03:30.637-07:00Two iPhones And A Rice Bowl<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This is a tale of two Apple iPhones and one big bowl of uncooked rice:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In mid-January my sister called because she had lost her Apple iPhone 3GS. The iPhone was off so she couldn't call it or send a "Find My iPhone" signal. She suspected it fell from her pocket while shoveling out from one of the winter's biggest storms. As a precaution she had the iPhone deactivated and considered it a loss. She reckoned if it was lost under a couple of feet of snow there was no way it would be found weeks later in working order when the snow eventually melted away. The next day she purchased an iPhone 4 as a replacement.&nbsp; The Apple store staffer suggested if the iPhone 3GS was found as the snow melted to immediately place it in a big bowl of uncooked rice to draw out the moisture.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A little over a month later and following snow accumulations of an additional four feet, sub-freezing temperatures and a few sub-zero overnights, there was one sunny 60 degree February day. The rapidly melting snow left a shimmering black iPhone in its wake. To her astonishment the phone started up with all of her apps and data available. Because the phone had been deactivated, the only thing she couldn't do was make a call.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Two months hence and on the other side of a continent, my daughter accidentally dropped her Apple iPhone 3G into a small, manmade bowl of water commonly found in restrooms stalls. That's as descriptive as I want to get in this story. This was an obvious cause of upset. When I saw the phone after she brought it home it was undeniable that water had penetrated the device. One could see the water move when the touch screen was pressed. Recalling the conversation I had with my sister back in January, I immediately filled a kitchen mixing bowl with uncooked white rice from the pantry and gently pushed the iPhone into the middle of the bowl with the touchscreen facing down.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Eager to see if the rice advice would work, the following day I pulled the phone from the mixing bowl. The iPhone was dry to the touch, but unresponsive to attempts to startup the device. Only slightly discouraged I put the iPhone back in the bowl and waited for a second day. The next day I pulled the phone from the mixing bowl and while the phone wasn't immediately responsive, there was no hint of moisture in or around the device. I plugged the iPhone in to charge it and sure enough the Apple logo appeared. A few minutes later the phone began to beep and a stream of previously unreceived text messages appeared on the screen. Although the iPhone was now encased in a thin film of dry rice residue and the battery was taking a much needed charge, it was apparently no worse for wear. Yesterday, day three, my daughter took her iPhone to school and work as if the mishap had never happened.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Two iPhones and one big bowl of uncooked rice have proven the iPhone is made to be a resilient device.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/C8zWnNHPsNw" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.comhttp://www.theipadchronicles.com/2011/04/two-iphones-and-rice-bowl.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-72824244462106898232011-04-09T10:43:00.000-07:002011-04-09T12:22:11.675-07:00Wonders Never Cease: My Mother Is Getting An iPad<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Wonders never cease. My mother is getting an iPad. The dear woman blissfully bypassed the PC era and has never used a personal computer. This isn't to say she doesn't have one. There has been a designated Mac in the house for use by grandchildren and my mother's wayward adult children who are challenged to spend more than a day in an Internet free zone on trips home.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">To provide Internet access in the post dial-up era I labored one summer day to extend an Airport network from my sister's house on an adjacent property to and through my mother's house via of relay stations. Still, my mother until now has never used the Internet and the closest she has come to using a Mac is dusting the dust cover on the keyboard.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">That's all about to change. It's not that the woman is information starved in any way. She has an amazing capacity for news and information consumption from traditional sources such as books, magazines and TV. Thanks to satellite TV if my hectic workday keeps me from reading the headlines a quick call to my mother during my evening commute will usually provide an earful of the day's top stories filtered through her unique editorial outlook. For years she has supported and endorsed the use of Apple devices in the educational lives of her grandchildren, but she has never once touched a keyboard.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">When the Apple iPad was released last April my sister and I thought this was a natural device for my mother's interest in news and information. Perhaps it was my nephew's enthusiasm for the profusion of apps available, but showcasing Angry Birds and similar digital wares wasn't an enticement. For all my mother has experienced and endured in life, spending time engaged in aerial assaults of digital pigs isn't among her desired hobbies. But recently she has come to realize as a news and book reader the Apple iPad is beyond compare.&nbsp;The home screen and icons that will deliver the tailored content she desires makes sense for a no-nonsense consumer. The abundance of easy-to-use news apps and the iBookstore are a winner.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Apple iPad is an engaging device. Piercing a demographic of older consumers who view the physical keyboard as a step back and not a step forward is an example of how Apple's tablet product transcends the PC and is ushering in a new era of more intuitive and useful digital devices.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/KKR0JvjNrtI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.com3http://www.theipadchronicles.com/2011/04/wonders-never-cease-my-mother-is.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-31823372377688553982011-03-06T18:55:00.000-08:002011-03-06T18:55:50.559-08:00My Work PC Has Become A Fork<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">In what's now called the post-PC era, I view my work PC as a utensil similar to a fork. Like most kitchen utensils a fork sits in a drawer until selected for limited-use tasks. The difference here is the Windows PC that adorns my work desk won't fit inside a drawer and it can't be cleaned quite as easily. But it has now been relegated to limited and specific-use purposes.&nbsp;</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">My work PC has become a casualty of the Apple iPad. I've foregone any effort to try and make Outlook work as a productivity solution and rely on OmniFocus, iCal and Apple's Address Book to maintain my schedule, manage projects and tasks and keep my contact register up-to-date. In addition to using my iPhone for personal communication, it has become a "pocket iPad" for personal and business productivity. Alas, my work PC has two functions: business email during business hours and one regular work task for which a conventional desktop or portable PC is still required.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Last week I purchased through the Apple app store <a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus/">the Mac version of OmniFocus</a> for my iMac at home. It syncs with the iPad and iPhone versions of the product through MobileMe and it adds my project due dates into iCal. I now keep one calendar for all of my activities and commitments (personal and business) and it's constantly updated on all of my Apple devices.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Although the iPad 2 was introduced last week, for my uses the original iPad works just fine. There are plenty of uses remaining to be explored and none of those uses at this time require a camera nor a faster processor. I've been pleasantly surprised how many workday tasks can be accomplished more quickly, more easily and more productively on an iPad versus a conventional PC.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It's not that the iPad is a replacement PC. It's that the need for conventional PCs is being eliminated quickly. The conventional PC is becoming irrelevant through a process of consumer and enterprise selection. I just wish my workday fork could be cleaned of its issues and digital debris as quickly as the kitchen variety can be put through a dishwasher.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/RZeRJLRS4No" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.com1http://www.theipadchronicles.com/2011/03/my-work-pc-has-become-fork.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-69117914746256582782011-02-06T19:49:00.000-08:002011-02-06T20:10:41.454-08:00The Daily<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>The Daily</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">On February 2nd the first daily news publication specifically designed for the Apple iPad debuted in the market. Each new issue of <a href="http://www.thedaily.com/">The Daily</a> is sent automatically to subscribers and is available at the rate of $.99 per week or $39.99 for a yearly subscription. <a href="http://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/wa/link?path=apps%2fthedaily">The Daily app</a> is available at no cost through the iTunes app store. For the first two weeks following the February 2nd release, issues of The Daily are available for free.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I couldn't pass up the opportunity to explore the type and style of content available in The Daily during the two-week promotional period. Downloading each issue does a take just a bit of time. The publication is media rich and covers virtually all areas of popular interest from news to sports to opinion to arts &amp; life and even apps and games.&nbsp;For those who missed last week's launch event, a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.thedaily.com/launch">video is available</a> on the publication's website.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Navigation through each issue is definitely Apple Cover Flow-style and the app tracks each column or article that's been read or sampled. After reviewing The Daily over the past few days I'm impressed by the array of content available, though not all of sections are of personal interest. In my view the style of writing is a mix of a daily newspaper and&nbsp; weekly magazine. The news coverage is timely and topical and each news story can be consumed in just a few minutes time.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I'm intrigued by this first daily news publication designed specifically for the Apple iPad and I intend to purchase a weekly subscription when the trial period ends.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/JpcGY1idk_0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.com1http://www.theipadchronicles.com/2011/02/daily.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-17916416015645035872010-11-20T20:06:00.000-08:002010-11-20T20:06:33.861-08:00The Apple iPad's Versatility<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The Apple iPad's Versatility</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Apple iPad is the most versatile digital device I've ever owned. Lighter and easier to carry than a laptop, the array of comparatively inexpensive app solutions makes the device a winner at both work and at home. Although I purchased the Apple iPad primarily for use at home, it's versatility has made the device a work day essential.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Apple iPad and iPhone Integration</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One of the delightful aspects of owning and using an Apple iPad is the easy integration of work processes with the Apple iPhone. As I've mentioned previously, I use both OmniFocus for the iPad and the iPhone to manage work projects. Synching calendars between my Apple iPad, iPhone and my Mac at home is a feature available through Apple's MobileMe service.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>iWork apps and iCal</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I'm now using Numbers, Pages and Keynote on the Apple iPad and documents from the Mac and iPad versions of the apps can be easily transferred between devices. Being able to integrate project management, synch calendars and share documents among devices is creating a decidedly lesser role for my office PC in day-to-day workflow and accomplishments.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The Apple iPad Transcends The PC</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have my iPad with me at all business meetings for the purposes of taking notes and entering new contact information. Because my iPad, iPhone and Mac at home all synch through Apple's MobileMe service, I no longer bother to enter business contact information into my work PC. All of my business contact information is readily available on my mobile devices when needed and is stored on my Mac at home.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ironically, my iPad has become my general use device while my work PC has become a limited and specific-use utensil. At home my Mac is used primarily for content creation, Website updates and moderating discussions in the Apple Finance Board. All other tasks from following Twitter activity, reading news, reading books and monitoring my email activity is performed more conveniently on my Apple iPad.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It's not that the Apple iPad "replaces" a netbook or notebook PC. The Apple iPad represents a product paradigm that transcends the netbook and notebook PC. The iPad's touchscreen and app environment is rendering the netbook obsolete.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The Apple iPad and the Era of the iOS app</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have well over 125 iOS apps installed on my Apple iPad and over 100 apps installed on my iPhone. Including the Apple iWork app suite, iPad and iPhone versions of OmniFocus and a few assorted and inexpensive apps for home and work, my collective app investment remains under $125. Matched with pre-installed apps on the Mac, iPhone and Apple iPad such as iCal, Address Book and iTunes, additional app purchases provide for specific desired functionality at attractive prices. Integration of information across devices extends and enhances functionality among all of the devices.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I'm intrigued by the concept of a Macintosh app store and what developers will bring to market for use on the Mac and iOS-based devices. I see opportunities for continued integration and sharing of content among multiple devices.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>iOS 4.2.x for the iPad</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Meanwhile, I'm patiently waiting on the release of iOS 4.2.x for the Apple iPad and the expected increase in uniformity in the user experience between the Apple iPad and iPhone. There's more to the Apple iPad and its versatility than I expected when I first purchased the device. The integrated uses of the Apple iPad and the iPhone are among the pleasant surprises.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/fIgdRyTu8R8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.com1http://www.theipadchronicles.com/2010/11/apple-ipads-versatility.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-18757792432973302352010-11-13T10:41:00.000-08:002010-11-13T10:41:06.777-08:00OnmiFocus for iPad and iPhone<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I've started the hard work of entering all of my active projects and tasks into <a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus-ipad/">OmniFocus for iPad</a> and I'm finding this organizational solution surprisingly effective for my needs. Although I was ambivalent about the $39.99 purchase price, I'm finding the dollars invested to be well spent.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This week I purchased <a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus_for_iphone/">OmniFocus for iPhone</a> to serve as a complement to the Apple iPad version of the product. The two versions synch over MobileMe, allowing for the iPhone version to serve as a pocket-sized personal organizer. In just a few days of use this has proven to be a convenient way to keep track of current projects on-the-go while away from both my office and my iPad.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My investment in the iPad and iPhone versions of OmniFocus totals about $60. So far I consider it money well invested in a mobile productivity solution.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/XdvTQ__hSPE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.com0http://www.theipadchronicles.com/2010/11/onmifocus-for-ipad-and-iphone.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-29149667251656773952010-11-07T18:26:00.000-08:002010-11-07T18:36:05.099-08:00OmniFocus For iPad<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Last week I took the plunge and purchased <a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus-ipad">OmniFocus for iPad</a>. It's a $39.99 app for project and task management. The price was outsized for what I would ordinarily pay for an iOS app and I was ambivalent about the price. But time and time again I found myself at the Omni Group Web site checking the features or watching the brief tutorial videos waiting for the impulse to buy the product.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Purchasing a $39.99 app was above the threshold I had set for single app purchases. It's more than I've spent in about the past two years in the iTunes Music Store and more than I spent for the iWork suite of apps the day I purchased the iPad. But there I was looking at the app one more time. What finally prompted me to buy the app is the recommendation of my former boss. He's an extraordinarily organized guy and a recommendation from him in favor of an organizational app carried a lot of weight. I clicked the purchase button, bought the app and I've been busy adding action items, contexts and projects to my OmniFocus database ever since.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A fews days after buying OmniFocus for iPad, I'm now visiting the <a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/">Omni Group Website</a> looking at the features and watching the video to determine if I should buy OmniFocus for iPhone as well.&nbsp; I'll probably do that a few more times before taking the plunge.&nbsp;The two apps work in concert or as standalone solutions.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I have a lot of things to do and after loading into OmniFocus all the things I need to do that I can remember I need to do it's no wonder I'm constantly thinking about all of the things I need to get done. I've already invested a few hours figuring out how OmniFocus works best (or at least works best the ways I want it to work best). There's one big thing I've already determined from working with the product the past few days. Those things I really don't want to do look much less ominous when reduced to a simple action item among the many things I do need to accomplish.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I'll post a review of OmniFocus for iPad after I work with the product for a few more weeks. Already I feel much more organized after only a few days of active use.&nbsp;The manner in which OmniFocus organizes information has become surprisingly intuitive after only a few days of use.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br /></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/H3-ZGN62sV8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.com0http://www.theipadchronicles.com/2010/11/omnifocus-for-ipad.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281227970810778314.post-8207935675808432462010-10-23T18:24:00.001-07:002010-10-23T18:33:51.447-07:00The Apple iPhone As An iPad Companion<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Since <a href="http://www.postsateventide.com/2010/08/my-1000-ipad-purchase-odyssey-and-law.html">purchasing my Apple iPad in July</a>, the device hardly ever leaves my sight. It's on my work desk all day and it's somewhere within easy grasp while at home.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I am an information junkie. The more information I have the more information I want. Both my Apple iPad and my iPhone have over 100 apps installed and most of those apps are news and information gathering apps. Since the purchase of my Apple iPad there are unopened magazines in my mail pile at home that I have yet to even glance at in what I now describe as the "Apple iPad era." At renewal I plan to cancel all but one of the few magazine subscriptions we receive at home. The Apple iPad is a far superior means to access and consume content than waiting on the mail for publications in print.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The impact of the "Apple iPad era" is unfolding before our eyes as developers see opportunities in iPad-specific apps and Apple ramps supply of iOS-based devices to meet global demand and further the company's multi-product, integrated approach to the market. In the iPad era I'm even looking at my Apple iPhone from a new perspective.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In addition to being my primary device for voice communication, the iPhone is a pocket-sized complement to the tablet-sized Apple iPad. From app-based news alerts to dozens of apps shared with the iPad, the iPhone has become a practical extension of the way I use the Apple iPad. In this context the iPhone's functionality has been enhanced by my heavy use of the Apple iPad.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The iPhone is an excellent device for voice communication, text messaging and emails while on the go. As a companion to the Apple iPad it has become more useful mobile resource. I use the Apple iPad for email much more than I use the iPhone.&nbsp; The iPhone has become a pocket-sized means to follow-up on communications that were sourced on the Apple iPad and access updates to news stories I have begun to follow. The shared app resources makes this integration all the more possible.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Apple's MobileMe service syncs all of my iOS-based mobile devices together and with my Mac. Shared bookmarks, calendars, contacts and emails allows me to continue with the work I started on my iPad when the device is out of reach or I'm at locations or events for which I'd prefer not to carry around a tablet-sized device.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There are tens of millions of iPhone users worldwide and millions of those users may come to see the Apple iPad as a practical means to enhance the usefulness of the phone they already own. There will also be tens&nbsp; of millions of new Apple iPad users over the next 12 months. Of those new users there are potentially millions who will see the iPhone as both a logical and natural next step in the iPad's immersive experience.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Apple's multi-product iOS paradigm may prove increasingly irresistible for users seeking to extend, expand or enhance the usefulness of any one particular iOS-based device they own. A mutual halo effect among the devices should be expected.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Robert Paul Leitao</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheIpadChronicles/~4/gOks-MWH5WI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Robert Paul Leitaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11879679443588605991noreply@blogger.com0http://www.theipadchronicles.com/2010/10/apple-iphone-as-ipad-companion.html